


Slouching Towards Bethlehem

by Lillian_Shepherd



Series: Agents of Light and Darkness [1]
Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: Gen, Warning: part of this story takes place in a Nazi death camp.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:04:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/Lillian_Shepherd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the invasion of France well under way, a mission in the Vosages goes wrong, and Casino is taken prisoner...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slouching Towards Bethlehem

**Author's Note:**

> Contains multiple deaths, torture, a death camp and a mad Nazi occultist.

_The Widening Gyre_

 

The safe, according to its handsome gold label, was manufactured in Essen and the type was in such standard use by the _Wehrmacht_ and _SS_ that Casino was sure his fingers could have opened it without any direction from his brain. In fact, he was certain that any other member of the team could have opened it in their sleep from watching him so often.

Goniff was watching him now, though he did keep an intermittent eye on the door. Chief, on the other hand, was gazing steadfastly out of the window in his unnerving fashion. Blasted Indian. Sometimes he hardly seemed human at all. Still, you could trust him to keep a watch, and to kill anyone who came too close... in more ways than one, probably.

The safe door clicked open.

According to Garrison there ought to be an envelope inside marked _STRENG GEHEIM._ And there it was, covered with all sorts of seals and stamps that called attention to it immediately.

If Casino had been breaking into a civilian safe he would have suspected a trick, but eighteen months working for Allied Intelligence had convinced him that the military mind had no subtlety and no sense of humour; with the exception of Garrison, who had too damn much of both if you asked Casino –which no one did, of course.

The seals had already been broken and the packet opened, which made life easier. All he had to do was to take out the papers and photograph them, making sure that this time he kept the focus chain on the camera taut. He had yet to live down the fuzziness of the pictures he had taken in the German Embassy in Istanbul, only half of which had been legible.

Fortunately for him, the useful half.

This time, he was careful. When he'd finished, he tucked the papers back into their envelope and replaced them in the safe. Goniff was already wiping everything they had touched, but more from habit than necessity. It was unlikely that anyone would fingerprint the room, let alone be able to match their prints.

Still, better safe than sorry. They had the time. Actor and Garrison were below, carrying _Gestapo_ papers and making enough fuss about a supposed high level blackmail ring to keep the General and his staff occupied for hours and keep him quiet for even longer if he suspected than anyone had been near his safe. Everyone had something to hide from the cops, especially political cops.

"Finished," he told his team-mates, as he twisted the combination lock inside his handkerchief.

"All clear," Chief said, from the window. They were the only words he had spoken in the last hour.

Goniff went first, reaching out to the guttering and swinging himself up onto the roof. Chief followed almost as agilely.

Damn them both. The Limey was like a fucking monkey and even if the Indian had been scared of heights, he would never have admitted it. Casino hated heights.

Two hands were being offered from above, one pale skinned, the other darker. He grabbed both, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to be hauled upwards.

"Stay here," Goniff's voice said in his ear. "Gotta shut the bleeding window. Don't want the General to catch cold, do we?"

"He c'n catch pneumonia for all I care. I ain't goin' nowhere."

Unfortunately, he had to. Once Goniff had finished with the window, he sidled across the pitch of the roof, Chief just behind him. Casino, muttering under his breath, followed them. Once on the ground they would straighten their stolen uniforms and march out of the camp, waving the papers they had been given. They even had a few choice German phrases learned specially for the occasion.

They were still a little way ahead of him when he reached the ground, Chief just in the lead, head twitching to left and right like an eagle Casino had seen at the Bronx zoo, just waiting for something killable to come within reach. Goniff shuffled along in his wake, as if he could somehow vanish into the earth under his feet. Casino grinned to himself, and hurried to catch up.

He never made it. He was still about ten yards to the rear, and Chief and Goniff were just turning into an alleyway that ran between the barrack blocks when the voice shouted: _"Stehen bleiben! Stehen bleiben, sag ich. Haende hoch oder schiesse!"_

Whatever it meant, the tone was hostile.

Chief reacted first, grabbing Goniff and jerking him into the shadows. Casino didn't know if that would keep them from being spotted, but he did know that he had, and that if he followed them they were finished too.

He half-turned so his body was blocking the Germans' line of sight and backhanded the camera in the general direction of Chief and Goniff. He didn't hear it fall, but then he was already striding away, trying not to break into a run.

A bullet seared its way over him, almost parting his hair.

With no cover available, there was only one thing to do. He flung himself flat on the ground and clasped his hands on his head.

No-one shot at him again, but within moments he could see himself in reflected in the brightly polished toe-caps of three pairs of jackboots. The business end of a bayonet sliced the earth beside his cheek.

_"Auf die Fuesse, Abschaum!"_

He didn't understand a word of the snarled order. It was only when it was repeated that it occurred to him that it might mean to get to his feet.

He attempted this very cautiously indeed.

If anyone found out he was American, the mission was shot. Deliberately, he began to protest, first with the few German words he knew, then in more fluent Italian.

 

Chief and Goniff, flattened against the wooden barracks wall, listened to every unintelligible word and watched with growing dismay as Casino was herded across the compound and hurled up into the last of a waiting line of trucks.

They looked into each other's eyes with one thought in mind. Chief voiced it: "Gotta find the Warden."

 

Garrison and Actor must have been aware of their hidden passengers as they climbed into their car and drove out through the heavily guarded gates, but you would not have known it from their expressions or the small-talk they exchanged – in German – until their forged papers had been inspected and passed.

As soon as they were out of sight of the guards, though, Goniff popped up like a rabbit to gasp, "They got Casino."

Garrison swung in his seat to catch hold of Goniff's arm, fingers biting hard. "What?"

"They got Casino. We gotta get 'im outa there."

Garrison's eyes shifted past Goniff's to Chief's. "What about the despatches?"

"Here." Chief tossed the little camera over.

"Forget the ruddy film. What about Casino?"

"Goniff, calm down," Garrison ordered. "Do you know where they're holding him?"

"Can't understand the bleeding lingo, remember? An' Casino was speaking to them in Italian."

Garrison exchanged looks with Actor, who said: "That was quick thinking. They probably believe he is an Italian deserter. He would be a little far north, but there are so many of them now..."

"You think they'll ship him back to Italy?"

"Perhaps."

"There was a name," Chief said. "Began with D. Sounded German, not Italian or French."

"Yeah, Drakgiftson or something."

"Drachgiftzahn?"

 _"Merda,"_ Actor said, even as Goniff protested that that was what he had said in the first place.

"You guys've heard of it?"

Actor nodded. "It's a concentration camp." He would have elaborated, but Garrison's expression silenced him.

"It's about twenty miles from here," the Lieutenant said neutrally. "Okay, I'll lay it out for you. We'll split into two teams. I'll go after Casino. Actor takes the film and makes our rendezvous."

"Maybe we oughta stick together," Chief said.

"No. I'm not going back without Casino, but the film is even more important. It has to be at SHAEF within twenty four hours or the information will probably be useless. You'll be Actor's backup, Chief. Goniff will come with me."

"You bet I will."

"Warden—" Actor began, but Garrison cut him off.

"That's the plan."

Actor was looking at him very dubiously. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Lieutenant? That place had a bad reputation even before the Germans took it over."

"Worry about your own mission, Actor. Stop and let us out here. We'll find our own wheels."

 

It was dim inside the truck but not too dark to see that it was packed with people. Even if it had been pitch black Casino would have heard the sea sound of their fast breathing, felt the warmth of massed bodies and, above all, smelt the stench of sweat and urine.

It brought back unpleasant memories, of Sing Sing and Leavenworth and police cells packed with drunks and deadbeats. Only there had never been women and children there, and there had been shouts and curses, not this uncanny near-silence. One thing was familiar: no-one looked directly at him, though everyone was watching him.

He opened his mouth to shout at them, in fury at their lack of response to their degradation and danger, then shut it again. They almost certainly didn't speak either Italian or English, and the latter might give him away, in any case.

Give him away? Who was he kidding? He was just as much a sheep on its way to the slaughterhouse as these pathetic clumps of human flesh, huddled together in their tiny groups of families and lovers and friends.

Of which he had none. He edged towards the rear of the truck. muttering Italian apologies as he bumped and bored his way towards that strip of light.

He still had his lockpick, and he'd broken out of far more secure places than this rackety vehicle. All he needed was the chance, for all those hooded eyes to stop watching him. He wished to Hell he had a cigarette – or, better, a drink. More than that, he wished he knew what the others were doing.

At least he had hope. Even if he didn't get a chance to bust the lousy lock, the team would come for him. And Garrison could work miracles.

Except he'd probably be dead before they arrived. Better not to rely on them finding him. After all, if the film was that important, Garrison might decide to cut his losses and get behind Allied Lines as quickly as he could...

Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn't true. Garrison had never abandoned any of them.

There's always a first time, baby.

 

As Goniff climbed into the car beside Garrison after hot-wiring the engine, he reached out and tentatively touched the Lieutenant's arm. "Er... thanks, Warden," he said softly.

Garrison glanced at him as he freed the parking brake and let out the clutch. "It's not sentiment, Goniff. Your skills are more useful to me than Chief's right now, and he'll be better at watching Actor's back." Besides, he added grimly to himself, where we're going, it's best to look as Aryan as possible. Chief could be too easily taken for a Jew or a Gypsy. And being recognised as a half-breed Indian probably wouldn't save him.

He hoped to God Casino was still alive to be rescued and not already gassed by the exhaust fumes from the truck in one of the more callously economical Nazi ploys.

Not a concentration camp; a death camp, the only one on what was once French soil.

 

_A Gaze Blank and Pitiless_

 

The door at the back of the truck was hopeless, barred and padlocked from the outside, where Casino could not reach. Not only that, but the strip of light below it had darkened until he could not see more than a few inches. Rain was drumming on the roof. He could hear the swish of tires sweeping through water...

Carrying all of them to their deaths.

 _"Parlez vous francais?"_ The voice was quiet, but very close. It was so soft and deep that for a moment Casino almost thought it was Garrison's.

Stupid hope.

The man hunkering down beside him was almost as large as the Lieutenant, but the thin strip of light showed a face at least twenty years older, with stubble on head and chin turning grey... His skin looked grey, too, baggy over features that still seemed almost too big for the oval face.

 _"Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Milate Elinika?"_ the man continued. Then, as Casino shook his head. "Das Jiddisch? Hebrew? Latin?"

_Latin?_

"English?"

"Yeah," Casino said, to stop him. The guy plainly spoke more languages than Actor – but English was so far down his list he was unlikely to speak it well.

"Good. My Italian is quite dreadful," the man said, in an urbane accent that reminded Casino of Actor in Upper-class-Limey mode.

Well, even if the guy did speak good English, he was unlikely to realise just how bad Casino's Italian really was. He'd just have to be careful.

The man was looking at him shrewdly. "You are not Jewish?"

"No," Casino said. Of necessity, he was becoming as laconic as the blasted Indian.

"I thought not. My name is Benjamin Zender."

 _"Signore,"_ Casino acknowledged, with a little nod of his head. "Mine is Lucio Perissich." There was distinct pleasure in using Actor's real name – or, rather, the name under which he had been convicted in the States.

" _Signore Perissich_ , do you by any chance happen to know the destination of this truck?"

"Will it matter to any of us?" Casino growled in response. "We all know what our destination is – an' it ain't anywhere in this world."

"If the Lord wills it so. But, please, as a courtesy...?"

Casino sighed. The guy didn't give up easy. "They mentioned a place. Drachgiftzahn." He made an effort to pronounce it correctly.

Zender drew a breath through his teeth. "Drachgiftzahn. That is not good news."

"You expected some?"

 

"What do we do, Warden?" Goniff asked. He had exchanged places with Garrison, giving the Lieutenant the freedom to study the map he had found in the glove-box.

"Take the next right."

"That's not wot I meant," Goniff pointed out, negotiating the bend carefully because of the steepness of the road and the heavy rain that had started soon after they had left the barracks.

Garrison grinned to himself. "Well, as we have _Gestapo_ papers, the best thing to do is use them. I reckon we'll just drive right in and demand Casino back."

"Crikey! Will they fall for that?"

"I don't see why not, so long as you keep your mouth shut except when you're asked a question – and then just say 'Ja' or _'Nein'_ , as I signal, plus whatever title is appropriate. Let me do all the talking."

"With pleasure."

"But if you do get the chance to pick any appropriate pockets...?"

"That'll be just— Bleedin' 'ell." Goniff braked to a stop.

For an instant, as the clouds separated under the lash of the wind, it had seemed as if they would crash into the wall of rock that rose directly from the valley floor. But it was much further away, a spire so sheer that no building ought to have been able to perch on its side, yet clusters of houses clung in the trees like snails on an ivy-clad wall, and above them the towers of a castle mocked the peak on which they stood.

"Blimey! What the fuck is that?"

"Drachgiftzahn," Garrison answered grimly. "And the old monastery below that castle is now one of only three concentration camps west of the Rhine. What surprises me is that the Germans are still sending people here. The Russians report that in the East those prisoners still alive have been forced to march away from advancing Allied troops – and Patton and de Lattre are both closing in on Alsace-Lorraine."

"That was what was in the safe, wasn't it?" Goniff said shrewdly. "Their plans to counter our attack?"

"You got it."

"And that's where they've taken Casino?"

"Apparently."

Goniff shivered. "Let's get 'im out of there, Warden. Place gives me the willies."

Garrison took a deep breath. "So it should," he said. "And the sooner you start moving again, the sooner we can get Casino and be gone."

Goniff took the hint.

 

The truck, which had been labouring up what appeared to be a steep slope, stopped with a jerk. There was shouting outside, then it rocked forward a few yards. More shouting. Another short move, then the doors were flung open, turning near darkness into mere dimness. Soldiers leaped aboard, yelling at the dazed prisoners. One grabbed Casino to haul him out, and it was only Zender's shove from behind that made him obey rather than belt the man in the kisser.

Maybe he was right at that.

They were being unloaded into some sort of courtyard. The gates were behind them, huge modern affairs set incongruously into a medieval archway. There were low buildings on all four sides, shadowed by high walls, three manmade, one natural rock. A stairway crossed and re-crossed the rock face, disappearing into murk.

What seemed like hundreds of people were huddled in the shelter of walls or makeshift tents. Casino had never seen a more miserable looking crowd; all were thin and many were little more than walking skeletons. Most of them had shaved heads and wore striped convict's suits, which made them look like sick children in pyjamas, but they showed nothing of the curiosity of children: none of them even looked at the truck.

"Christ..." Casino muttered to himself.

Warden, get me out of here.

The troopers were still evicting people from the truck into the rain, herding the men into one group and the women and children into another amid much wailing, clinging and desperate protest. Finally, though. it was done, and the men assembled, more or less in line, for inspection by the Kommandant, a burly man who looked more like a film producer's idea of a Norwegian fisherman than a member of the _SS_ , despite the skull grinning from his collar. As he ran his eyes over the wet and confused ranks it seemed to Casino that he was looking for something... or someone.

This guess was confirmed when the Kommandant spoke quietly to a subordinate, who stepped forward to bellow a question in German, the only word of which Casino distinguished was "Zender." He knew better than to look at his new friend. Maybe this would give the man an out, or maybe it meant that he would be killed even more quickly.

The Kommandant said something again, and his subordinate repeated it just as unintelligibly.

Nothing happened, but Casino could feel the apprehension all the way down the line.

Then the Kommandant pointed at a young man, little more than a boy, who was promptly dragged from the line by one soldier while another levelled his rifle. He heard Zender's gasp, felt him try to shove past him and elbowed him in the solar plexus by pure instinct—

Never give the Krauts what they want.

Three shots rang out in quick succession.

The boy screamed and went on screaming as he writhed on the ground clutching his stomach. The stench of shit was suddenly overpowering, and mixed with the sweeter scent of blood.

Casino froze in horror. This time, Zender had no trouble in thrusting him aside, and marching up to the Kommandant, even as he made a vague "take it away" gesture at the boy, who was dragged off, his screams diminishing more swiftly than the distance justified.

A few places up the line, a middle-aged man was sobbing.

Casino didn't realise it, but tears were running down his own cheeks, tears of rage, and of shame. His nails bit into the palms of his hands until they bled too, but it was not enough. He had acted before he thought, to save someone who had shown him kindness or perhaps out of sheer contrariness – and now a child was dying in agony.

What was worse, it seemed that Zender had been in no immediate danger, for the Kommandant was smiling, giving him a little polite bow, greeting him with what appeared to be pleasure and leading him away up that great flight of steps into the clouds.

 

The _SS Scharführer_ who examined Garrison's papers looked as if he might enjoy making even the _Gestapo_ sweat a little, then he caught the look in Garrison's eyes, saluted smartly – even managing to make the " _Heil Hitler!_ " sound fervent – and shouted to his men to open the gates. "You need to take the road up to the castle, sir. _Standartenführer_ Steyrer will give you his full co-operation, I have no doubt."

"As you have?" Garrison asked, with gentle menace.

"Sir."

At a nod from Garrison, Goniff put his foot on the gas and shot through the narrow gates, sending the soldiers jumping for their lives. Beyond the walls the road forked. One branch was truncated almost immediately by another set of gates in a second wall; the other led precipitously up the side of the mountain into its collar of low cloud. It was this one into which Goniff swerved to avoid crashing through the gates.

"Keep on going, straight up to the castle," Garrison told him. "We can't get anything done down here without the Kommandant's co-operation. No doubt the _Scharführer_ will already be telling him we're coming."

 

Casino expected his group of prisoners to be left to mingle with the others in the rain and cold but, as soon as the Kommandant had gone, the _SS_ soldiers began rounding up the walking skeletons already resident in the courtyard. Soon everyone not in German uniform was packed into two groups, one male and one female.

With much shouting, the women were herded towards the cliff face, but not up the stairway the Kommandant had used. Instead, they disappeared into one of the small buildings propped along the base.

Casino watched with growing puzzlement. There couldn't be room to swing a cat in that shed, yet the women streamed through its door without pause, nearly a hundred of them, in an eerie silence. And when they had gone, the men were urged forward to follow in their wake.

 

The castle sat brooding on the side of the Drachgiftzahn like a gigantic raven, its black plumage rusty with traces of Roman and Renaissance brick. It seemed to have been partially pulled down and rebuilt over the centuries, an ungainly mixture of medieval spontaneity, Napoleonic severity and Gothik extravagance, with just a thin veneer of Nazi grandiose.

Garrison's guess had been right. Even as their car creaked carefully over the wooden bridge that spanned a fortuitous crack in the mountain and on through the portal, they could see an officer and several _SS_ troopers descending to meet them.

Goniff drew up at the foot of the stairway, unable to resist a nervous glance behind him. Even though he could still see the greyness of the surrounding cloud and the falling rain, it felt as if prison gates had clanged shut behind them.

One of the soldiers sprang to open the door for Garrison. Goniff got out too, positioning himself at the Lieutenant's shoulder as the safest place to be. The _SS_ officer greeted them in German, examined Garrison's papers, then led the way into the castle.

The interior was much the same as the exterior, save that the Victorian Gothik predominated and the layer of Nazi grandiose was overlaid somewhat by undoubted Nazi efficiency. It was horribly reminiscent of their English HQ.

The doors were flung open. Beyond them was a huge table the size of the whole dining room at the Manor. At the head sat a burly, bearded, open-faced man in the uniform of a _SS-Standartenführer._ Beside him, a dark man wearing even darker robes in which he seemed somewhat uncomfortable was eating with the efficiency of someone who is ignoring the company because he does not know where his next meal is coming from. His hair was cropped close to his head, yet he did not have a military air...

"Come in, come in," the _Standartenführer_ said expansively. "My name is Steyrer. I have been expecting you."

"Indeed?" Garrison's expression was dangerous. "But we told no-one we were coming here."

"I have my sources," Steyrer said, with a chuckle. "A little cryptic, but surprisingly reliable. They also warned me to expect my guest here, that most distinguished scholar, the Rabbi Benjamin Zender."

Garrison was so surprised by this information that just for an instant he stared at the Rabbi in frank speculation before twisting his features into the expected expression of disgust. "You have strange preferences for dinner guests, _Herr Steyrer_."

"Indeed? But surely you and your aide came here to join us, _Herr_...?"

"Ronneburger," Garrison said, ignoring the outstretched hand and the invitation. "I apologise for interrupting your meal but the matter is urgent. Among the prisoners brought in in the last truck was an Italian spy. I need to speak with him."

"I am afraid you are mistaken," Steyrer said urbanely. "There were no Italians in the last shipment just French traitors, Jews and a few gypsies. We have had English and American spies in the last few months – and one Jewish one—" He nodded towards Zender. "But Italians...?" He shook his head.

Garrison had noticed Zender jump, hardly more than a flinch, but from the way Goniff was staring at him, he'd seen it too.

"I really must insist, _Herr_ Steyrer," Garrison said. "You may not know about this man. He was a last minute addition to your prisoners, and is unlikely to have been on your manifest."

Zender was plainly on the horns of a dilemma. He glanced quickly past Garrison to Goniff, who might not have been following the conversation, but had caught the word 'Rabbi'. Remembering Garrison's own silent instructions when he had been in the hands of the Germans, he nodded very slightly.

Go on, pal. Follow the Warden's lead. He won't leave you here to die.

"And no doubt he will be as pleased as _Herr_ Zender to be given a... lease of life," Garrison went on.

Zender came to a decision. He cleared his throat. "There was an Italian. A _Signore_ Perissich."

Goniff's suppressed snort at the name was luckily only audible to Garrison who said, "Ah, yes, he has used that name before. Come, _mein Herr_. The Allied forces are close. We must find out what he has told them."

Steyrer tuttutted. "Really, _Herr_ Ronneburger, the Allied forces will not advance beyond the Vosages, you can rest assured of that. However, I suppose I must oblige colleagues under the command of my very good friend _Herr_ Himmler. Schmidt, telephone and tell the duty squad to hold back on the men – you did say it was a man, didn't you, _Herr_ Ronneburger? You may be lucky and find him still alive."

 

_Of Passionate Intensity_

 

As he passed under the roof of the lean-to, Casino finally understood where all the people had been vanishing. This was merely a porch sheltering an opening in the cliff face. Ancient oak and iron doors stood wide. Beyond, firefly electric lamps laid a trail deep into the mountainside. A cold breeze issued from the tunnel, stinking of sweat and human waste and something that Casino could not identify.

As the line moved forward, each man hesitated for a moment at the slap of the stench, so the beat of their feet was broken in syncopation.

The tunnel was lined with steel already rusting in the damp air.

As Casino walked on, he became aware of a noise, a descant to the drum-rumble of feet. Even before he recognised it, it made him shudder.

Identification put ice in his bowels: the echoes of screams, reverberating back and forth so he had no idea how many voices there were, a continuous descant of terror.

Anger could no longer save him from despair.

This is the end of the line, he thought. Our luck hadta run out sooner or later. I mighta known it'd be when we started winning the war.

There was no longer any hope that Garrison would come in time to save him. He would have to face his death alone.

To his own surprise, he thanked God for it.

Ahead of him, the tunnel opened out into a cave lit by lamps set high on the walls. It was warmer here, and very damp. The pools on the rock floor steamed.

The screaming was louder too, unending, coming from straight ahead. Somehow, Casino stopped himself putting his hands over his ears, humming to himself instead in a futile effort to drown it.

The women were being held in a series of small, chain-link fenced pens. Casino and the men were pushed into adjoining ones. He had the odd feeling that the _SS_ soldiers were nervous.

Well, so they should be.

You're going to get yours when the Allies reach this place, Casino promised them silently. I just wish the Hell I could be here to see it.

 

"And now, won't you have a glass of brandy, _Herr_ Ronneburger?" Steyrer asked, urbanely. "You must be cold after your drive."

Garrison shook his head. "Thank you, _Herr Standartenführer,_ but we have no time. I must be on my way just as soon as we have Perissich, so if..." He gestured towards the door.

"Nonsense. Schmidt is perfectly reliable. Let this 'Perissich' sweat a little. It will make him more talkative. Besides, you will have to stay here for a while, I'm afraid. You would never make it down the mountainside in this weather; the road will be a cataract." Steyrer poured brandy with a flourish. Goniff took his with plain eagerness and an improvised " _Danke_ ," that surprised and pleased Garrison.

He sipped his own more cautiously. "What did you mean when you said you were expecting us?" he asked. "And when can I see my prisoner?"

"So impatient," Steyrer said, with a smile, but answering neither question. "There is plenty of time, my friend."

"We are retreating in Italy, France and Russia," Garrison stated baldly. "And General Patton is less than two weeks march from your gates. There is not an instant to lose."

"None of the Allies will reach us," Steyrer stated. "Certainly, General Patton won't get past what he finds waiting for him along the way. You have my personal assurance on that."

Goniff, not understanding but watching Garrison's face, thought that he'd never seen the Warden look gobsmacked before. Come to think of it, the Rabbi was looking pretty gobsmacked too.

"You see," Steyrer was continuing, "the more blood is shed, the more souls flee their bodies in torment, the closer our ultimate victory comes. Nostradamus foresaw it, of course. Oh, you may not understand, my friends, but the Rabbi here does. He is a great scholar, a student of the Talmud and the Qabala. He is also, of course, an agent of the Jewish magical cabal—"

"There is no such thing," Zender interrupted. "As for Nostradamus..." He shook his head. "False prophets have always used obscurity to mask their inadequacies."

"As true ones have used it to protect the innocent," Steyrer countered.

"If you two gentlemen have finished your theological debate," said Garrison, who was trying desperately to remember whether he had heard the name Nostradamus before and, if so, in what context, "perhaps I may be allowed to interview my prisoner?"

Steyrer was still smiling. "He thinks I am crazy," he explained confidentially to Zender. "So, we will give him his Italian spy – and perhaps convince him otherwise, neh? Come along, _Herr_ Ronneburger. You too, Rabbi. I am sure you will find the tour most interesting."

 

Casino squatted on the damp stone, his back against the chain-link fence, watching his companions. There was no hysteria here; these people had been through too much for that. If some wept, it was in silence.

Yet out of sight of these pens, deeper within the complex of caves, something happened that broke this despair into terror.

Guess I'll find out.

A unexpected sound made him leap to his feet, ready to do battle, but, of all things, it was the homely ring of a telephone. An _SS Oberscharführer_ went to answer it. He had to stick a finger in his free ear to hear over the echoes of the screaming, and to shout his reply. He seemed surprised at what he heard, for he questioned the person on the other end of the phone quite sharply before coming back and relaying what were, presumably, orders.

To Casino's silent astonishment, the small party of male prisoners being prodded towards the rear of the cave were now herded back into their pens.

A reprieve then, but only for the men. A group of women took their place.

 

Garrison had tried desperately to conceal his impatience as Steyrer stopped again and again on his way through the castle cellars and dungeons to show off both ancient artefacts and the use he had made of them; the wine cellars that had become a barracks, the dungeon used as an armoury, the kitchens that still fed the castle garrison...

The elevator, though, genuinely impressed him.

It was no more than a rough wooden platform, descending directly down a vertical shaft through the rock. Steyrer was expansive, pointing out the works of ancient chisels, and the pattern of at least two spiral stairways left on walls dripping with water.

"Some of this is medieval, some Roman," he was saying. "The last stairway fell in and blocked the shaft some time around thirteen hundred, leaving the only entrance to the caves through the monastery. It wasn't until Victorian times that they became accessible to visitors, though I believe Roger Bacon talked his way past the Abbot, and Dee bribed a monk to let him in."

Garrison let him babble, uncomfortably aware that Steyrer's words were troubling Zender and the whole situation was terrifying Goniff. Thank God he, at least, didn't understand the gobbledegook, which would have unnerved him even more. It was certainly unnerving Garrison.

"The locals used to believe that a dragon lived deep in these caves. There is evidence of ritual sacrifice from before the time of the Romans, so it's a very old belief. Wrong, of course. Nothing lived here until they called it with the pain of their sacrifices. Even then, it was weak. We have had to nurture it carefully."

"A dragon?" Garrison made it a sneer. He was sure now that Steyrer was mad, but that didn't mean he was any less dangerous.

"Of course not. There's no such thing. You could call it a demon, I suppose, though I doubt if it has any existence away from human pain... We have nurtured it with that pain, and souls, perhaps. The important point about this place is that its long history of sacrifice makes it easier to call such magical power into our reality. The trick then is to control it."

It was the matter-of-factness that made Garrison shiver. There was a demon, certainly, but it was standing beside him, the very picture of kindly urbanity.

It made him queasy, and he thanked God once again that Goniff couldn't understand anything but the simplest German.

 

As the elevator doors opened, a dreadful smell greeted them; a mixture of latrine and kitchen, of shit and piss and rot and boiled meat, and below that the stench of sulphur and a stale odour that brought a sudden memory of hiding out in Sabrina the Snake Dancer's basement flat to Goniff's mind. He reached for the reassurance of his pistol as he heard the echo of screams reverberating from the walls.

Chain link and barbed wire fences sectioned off portions of the cave, each crowded with men or women, sorted and penned like cattle outside a slaughterhouse. Unlike cattle in similar circumstances the prisoners were totally silent.

Steyrer gestured towards them. "With the Allies approaching, the remaining undesirables in Drancy and Natzweiler are being shipped here for disposal."

Garrison nodded, fighting down the urge to strangle Steyrer where he stood, repeating Casino's name to himself as a reminder that killing Steyrer would bring about not only his own death, but those of people he cared about.

And are you going to leave these... these 'undesirables'... here to be butchered in the name of racial purity or state security? Just how much is Casino's life worth...?

God help him, he didn't know.

 

_The Blood-dimmed Tide_

 

First it had been a ringing telephone, now it was the unmistakable sound of elevator doors opening. Casino looked wildly about him, as the _SS_ soldiers snapped to attention, finally locating the small group of men following the Kommandant down a flight of metal steps.

As he recognised the powerful, fair-haired young man at the German officer's side, Casino felt unutterable relief. The Warden was here. Now everything would be okay.

What the Hell was he thinking? Garrison was just a goddamn soldier-boy with an overactive imagination and no nerves. Little more than a kid.

But he'll get me out of this – or die trying.

And there was Goniff too, his expression so grim that he had taken a moment to recognise him. Casino felt a rush of warmth for both of his team-mates – his friends.

Garrison, who had been chatting in German to the Kommandant, now pointed directly at Casino. The Kommandant snapped something, and the _SS_ guards rushed to open the pen and extract an outwardly sullen, inwardly rejoicing, Casino.

Garrison jerked his head at Goniff. " _Bringen Sie Perissich her,_ " he said, knowing that the meaning was obvious.

Casino tore himself loose, straightened his tunic, and addressed himself to Garrison in a stream of Italian invective. He wasn't sure himself what some of it meant, but it was what his Italian cell-mate had used to call the screws, so it couldn't be far wrong.

Zender looked amused. The Kommandant raised an eyebrow. Garrison simply waited, then, as Casino paused to draw breath, said, in English: "If you have something to say, it should be in a language we both understand."

Casino spat at his feet.

"You will talk soon enough," Garrison observed. "You will come with us." Then he said something in German, addressed to Goniff, that Casino guessed meant, "Watch him closely." Goniff could also guess that much, and it did not require him to do any more than he was already.

The Kommandant gave an order to the _Oberscharführer_ , who snapped a crisp, " _Heil Hitler!_ " in acknowledgement before turning to speak to the guards.

The Kommandant beckoned to Garrison, and said something in German, of which the only word Casino understood was, " _Kommen,_ " but it caused Garrison to question him sharply in the same language.

"No indeed," Steyrer answered, in English, with a sly glance at Casino. "I think it might encourage your prisoner to talk if he sees what he has escaped – also my friend Benjamin here, eh? – and we will observe more easily from above. Come. Come."

There seemed nothing for it but to follow him back up the short flight of metal steps. At the top, he ignored the elevator and turned left into another tunnel, smaller than the one that had led into the cave. It was oval in section, its smooth walls a mass of graffiti.

Casino trailed along behind Garrison, Goniff at his back. His friend had touched his shoulder as he passed, seemingly a rough shove but actually a pat of reassurance.

He could still hear the screaming. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder.

We ain't outa this yet, he thought gloomily, his eyes fixed on the back of Garrison's head as he attempted to avoid looking at the walls and how they seemed to be closing in on him. An' what about the people out there? Gotta talk to the Warden about them—

The Kommandant interrupted his thoughts. "Some of this writing dates back to Roman times," he explained expansively. "Prayers to the Gods to keep what dwelt in this place at bay. Of course, their blood sacrifices simply made it stronger, though by no means as strong as the blood sacrifices of current battles will, as they approach. That is an altar to Vulcan," he added, indicating a blackened niche in the wall. "And I think the chamber through which we are about to pass was once a Mithraeum, though like so many it was converted into a Christian chapel."

It didn't look like either to Casino, just a damp cave with white painted walls illuminated starkly by a bare electric bulb. In one wall, though, there was a modern steel door.

When the Kommandant flung it wide, and the screams and the stink hit them, Garrison paused for a moment, before stepping into the dim, echoing space beyond. Casino took a deep breath – which he then wished he hadn't – and followed.

They were standing on the polished semicircular floor of a natural balcony halfway up the wall of a much larger cave, not particularly high, but so broad it seemed somehow wider than the mountain in which it was hidden, an impression heightened by the mist or steam that hung over the fissure that bisected the floor below, a full twenty feet across at its narrowest point. If it had a bottom, the mist obscured it.

Fifty feet beyond the fissure the ground rose sharply. At the furthest point of the big cave, it formed a natural platform, though still below their own vantage point. Here a group of male prisoners were being herded into a pen identical to the ones in the outer chamber, while on that stage between pen and fissure...

None of them would ever speak voluntarily about what they saw happening there, but it left Zender openly weeping. Goniff turned away so that Garrison and the Kommandant could not see his face, or the tears that dripped unheeded from his cheeks and chin. Casino clenched his hands, trying to bottle up his rage. He looked at Garrison, envying the calm of his face, the stillness of his expression – but even he couldn't control the colour of his skin, and the paleness of shock was beginning to be replaced by a flush that betrayed his fury.

For a moment, no more than an eyeblink, his mask slipped a fraction, revealing the horror beneath. He covered it with an expression of disgust and the words: "Is this... necessary, _Standartenführer_ Steyrer?"

"I fear so, though I find it as distasteful as you. I prefer to have as little to do with it as possible."

"But why is it necessary?" Garrison demanded. "Your job is to clear Europe of its dregs, not to promote sadism in German soldiers."

"There's enough of that already," Zender muttered, with a shudder, though he seemed unable to avert his eyes.

Casino wasn't listening. He was trying to work out what those soldiers not occupied with torturing the women were up to. It involved hauling metal grilles, about ten feet long and three or four wide, from where they had been suspended over the fissure, which steamed in gentle waves, as if breathing into a frosty morning.

Shackles clanged against the grilles. Casino saw something fall from one of them, a stick the colour of spoiled cream that thudded dully against stone before tumbling into the pit – and suddenly he knew what it was, and knew also what was sticking to the metal, like the remains of ham and eggs on his mother's griddle—

Oh Christ. How can you – your Father – any God— How can you allow this?

"Hereabouts they believed that what comes out of the chasm was the breath of the dragon," Steyrer was saying. "Scientists will say that it is merely water meeting hot volcanic rock – and perhaps it was only that, before the sacrifices began, back in the Iron Age. Just think of it – every hour or so, since men came to these caves, steam almost as hot as the lava it meets boils up from the fissure. The next blast is due in perhaps half an hour. Time enough to prepare the next batch for steaming – no, no, no, please," he protested, as Garrison, Casino and Goniff all swung towards him in blind rage, only to find themselves facing a quartet of Schmeissers, held by stone-faced _SS_ troopers.

"You are, of course, Allied spies, just as the Rabbi is a Jewish one. British? American? Well, it's not important. When the Wheel of Fortune dominates a spread which also contains the Tower, and in which the Magician is concealed and Knight of Staves reversed... And then the _I Ching_ gave _Tui_ above _Ch'ien_ , then _Li_ above _K'an –_ " He chuckled. "The Young Fox has certainly dipped his tail in the water."

"You are talking nonsense," Garrison protested. "We—"

"Every word you say confirms my interpretation. There is no use in protest. There are forces you simply do not understand. The Rabbi here knows some of it. The Qabala—"

"Is not what you and other occultists have made of it," Zender said curtly.

Steyrer waved an airy hand. "Or perhaps we see what is hidden from the traditionalist. Crowley and Waite have come close, though they have deluded themselves with dreams of wealth and power."

"But only you know the truth, eh?"

"A portion of it. As Nostradamus knew a portion. Now is the time of the powers of blood and death. They must be exploited and controlled."

Zender snorted. "Does Hitler believe this claptrap?"

Steyrer grinned. "No. Of course not. But _Herr_ Himmler does. He was most impressed when I raised the demon for him. The balance is tipping our way, gentlemen. And your armies are trapped by their own killing, becoming more and more like us, so tipping the scales in our favour." He held up his hand. "No, I do not expect you all to believe me – though I suspect the Rabbi does – without proof. To learn you must stay here and observe. You'll be quite safe." He gestured at his feet and for the first time Casino noticed the lines carved into the floor and filled with some sort of colour. "Just don't leave the pentacle."

"An' if we do?" Casino demanded belligerently.

"You will be destroyed, and feed my demon, just as the fear from those poor dregs of humanity witnessing a rehearsal of their own fate feeds it, as will their deaths. If you do as I say," Steyrer smiled, "you will be convinced – and I may be able to use you. Please, don't let it be a rehearsal of your own deaths. Now, would you please take out your pistols – carefully – and toss them into the fissure. Carefully, I said. That is better. Now, good day, gentlemen. I hope we will meet again soon, and that you will be more co-operative." He gave a stiff bow and left. The troopers backed out after him. The door shut behind them with a sucking noise, like an airlock.

"Warden—"

"Quiet!" Garrison snapped. "Check the door."

Recognising the sense in this, Casino obeyed.

Zender had already moved to the edge of the natural balcony, and Garrison joined him. Below, the _SS_ soldiers ignored the watchers as they strapped new victims into place on the grilles.

"The eruption must be very localised," Zender said quietly. "I think I believe Steyrer when he says it will not touch us here – though not because of the pentacle. Also if the idea is to scare those poor devils in the pen to madness even before the _SS_ torturers get their filthy hands on them, the steam will not reach them either."

Garrison nodded. "So they're safe for the moment. Let's try something simple first." He took a deep breath, straightened his back, and bellowed orders at the soldiers in his best parade ground voice.

He was totally ignored. It was as if they didn't even hear him. Instead, once they had finished their task, the soldiers retreated in well drilled order and vanished into the tunnel behind the holding pens.

From those pens, the prisoners watched, unspeaking now. Each pair of eyes was the weight of mountains. Casino, standing quietly behind Garrison, could hardly hold up his own shoulders, did not know how the Warden could bear it.

"I take it we can't get out of the door?" he asked, without turning.

"Uhuh. There isn't even a handle on this side. Or if there is, it's hidden."

Goniff, who hadn't moved since they had come out onto the balcony, jumped suddenly. "These any help, Warden?" he asked, as he produced a grenade from each pants pocket. Everyone stared at him; Zender with astonishment, Casino in admiration, and Garrison with resigned amusement – which changed to delight as he recognised Goniff's haul. "I 'alf-inched 'em back when we were coming through the armoury. Thought you might like 'em."

Garrison smiled. "Shopping for me instead of your Mum—?"

He was interrupted by a noise that made their skin crawl, like a stylus scraping on slate magnified a thousand times, slithering up from the fissure. Somehow, it seemed hotter, the air thick with steam and fumes.

"What's that smell?" Goniff asked, wrinkling his noise. "Phew!"

"How the Hell can you smell anything besides this stink? My nose is numb."

"So blow the bleeding door and get us out of here."

"There are almost certainly guards behind the door," Zender said, "and we are weaponless."

"Besides, we can't leave without the rest of the prisoners."

This time it was Garrison who Zender looked at in astonishment; the other two were merely resigned.

"So whadda we do, Warden?" Casino asked, because if it wasn't expected of him it ought to be.

The look Garrison gave him was hunted, and Casino could never remember that happening before. "Well," he said, plainly thinking aloud, "we can probably get down to the fissure – there's a ledge below us - but we can't get across, and we can't get to the women or the pens unless we do—"

"Er... Warden," Goniff broke in diffidently. "Take a butchers at that rock face. No, that one just to the left. See those deep cracks right up into the roof? There's a couple of different kinds of rock there. I reckon that with a little help that ruddy great slab'd break away." He spoke with the authority of a man who had an instinctive feel for what could and could not be relied on to support his weight.

Garrison looked once, twice, then slapped him on the shoulder. "Good thinking."

"Yeah. Problem is, if it goes, we'll probably go with it. Right into that fucking hole."

"Not if we time it right."

"If it misses us it may hit those poor buggers they're about to steam alive."

Garrison took a deep breath. "I know. But if we don't act, they'll die anyway – and at least our way'll be quick. First, all of us except Goniff need to get down to the ledge so we'll be protected from the blast. Casino, Goniff and I'll let you down first, then you can steady _Herr_ Zender."

 

Garrison was last down, leaving Goniff behind.

Crouching on the narrow strip of rock below the balcony, Casino realised how right Garrison had been: there was no place they could go from here – and they were too damn close to the fissure. The heat coming from it was already sticking his shirt to his skin. Sweat dripped from both of his companions; Garrison's hair was slick to his head, as if it had been greased down, and the stubble on Zender's chin and head was dewed.

Everything depended on Goniff – and they couldn't even see him.

There was no doubt that the women bound to the grilles now knew that something unexpected was happening. Chains swung in response to the shifting of skimpy weight, and Casino saw the whites of eyes flash against filthy flesh as the women fought to see what was happening. One voice, then another was lifted in prayer, and deeper male voices answered from the pen, so the echoes built into a weird counterpoint, the score for a horror movie.

Then Goniff was coming towards them, like a blond spider crawling down the rock face. At Garrison's shout he let go, dropping almost directly into the Lieutenant's steadying hands.

The grenades made only a small sound as they exploded, but the thunder of the landslide that followed drowned prayers and shouts alike. Sandwiched between Zender, who he had thrust against the rock face, and Goniff and Garrison, who were shielding him – damn them – Casino didn't know how long the noise lasted, only that when it ended the cave was silent, save for the thundering of their hearts and the raindrop patter of rocks continuing to fall.

Garrison stepped back and turned, allowing the others to do the same.

Casino looked for the women. They seemed still alive, though the grilles were rocking wildly like obscene cradles. And the fissure beneath them was untouched.

Closer at hand, a massive slab of rock stuck out above the depths, like a springboard over a swimming pool, leaving perhaps a five or six foot gap between its end and the other side. Stones drummed on it, echoes bouncing from every boulder.

It didn't look safe to Casino. Nor to Garrison, it appeared, for he said, "We go one by one, the lightest first. Goniff, that's you."

They all heard the thief gulp, then suddenly he was away and running, out onto the slab, taking off a foot before the edge with a precise leap that ended several feet beyond the rim of the fissure.

"You next, Rabbi."

Zender muttered something that might have been a prayer in Hebrew – or a spell in the same language – and picked his way carefully through the piled stones and out onto the slab. Teetering on its edge, he swung his arms back and forth in the manner of an old-fashioned standing-jump athlete, a preliminary to his frog-like leap into space. He nearly didn't make it, but Goniff caught him as he landed on the very lip and dragged him to safety.

Once clear, he struggled to his feet, broke away from Goniff, and ran on towards the women on the grilles.

Garrison slapped Casino's arm in the signal to go.

Dry-mouthed, Casino sucked in his breath, fixed his eyes on the pale blur of Goniff's face and hair, and ran towards it. The stone gangplank rocked from side to side as his feet fell on it.

"Jump!" shouted Garrison and Goniff together, and Casino leaped as ordered. The heat rising from the fissure was like that coming through the open door of a furnace.

He hit the rock hard, with enough force to drive him to his knees. Even as he finally took a breath, he heard the thud of feet, then the sound of something hard and large breaking, a shout, a clatter of rock...

Desperately, he pivoted, knowing that there was nothing he could do, would ever be able to do—

The slab had indeed broken, sheered away a couple of feet from the far side of the fissure. The crash and clatter must have been it bouncing off the cliff side – but, thank God, it had also covered the sound of Garrison landing, for he was crouching just a foot or so away. A breath later, and he was on his feet, waving towards the trapped crowd pressed against the wire. "Casino, get that pen open!"

Casino didn't have to be told twice. He pounded towards the prisoners, already calculating that some of them could be sent back to help Garrison and the others.

The locks were simple enough, now he could reach them from the outside, and he could use the lockpick – extracted from its usual position hooked over his back teeth – without being observed by the _SS_.

He'd opened the first when Zender and Goniff arrived, each with a limp body, so thin that Casino had to look twice to see if it were female, slung over his shoulders. They laid them beside the pen and Zender snapped orders at the prisoners, first in French, then German while Goniff said to Casino, "The Lieutenant thinks the roof's gonna come down," before scooting back the way he had come.

Casino swore and set to work on the second lock, gritting his teeth and resisting the temptation to look behind him or listen to the excited voices. Which weren't even speaking English.

The lock finally gave. He flung the gate wide, spun on his heel, and started back down towards the fissure. Zender was coming the other way, another body over his shoulders.

"The Lieutenant? Goniff?"

Zender jerked his head back at the fissure, too out of breath to say anything.

Casino had only taken three more strides when the roof fell in.

At first no more than the trickle of a stream, but it grew to a torrent of noise and stone.

The lights blinked out, isolating Casino in the thunder and the dust. He stumbled on through total blackness towards the fissure. "Goniff! Warden!" he shouted, but his voice was lost in the echoes, choked on the raised dust and his own fear. There was a black void inside him deeper than the terror into which he had almost toppled.

Even when the noise of falling rocks ceased, the ground still shook beneath his feet, as if the very planet was trembling in shared fear. Nor was there silence, but a soft rumbling as if the earth below had an empty belly.

 

He did not know how long the darkness lasted, but then light suddenly streamed in from above, outlining a figure that could only be Steyrer. It fell onto the cave floor in a river of brightness flowing over the tumble of stone that had closed the fissure, hazed by steam and dust. Accurate as a searchlight, it also illuminated the spot where Garrison and Goniff, grey with dust and shock, struggled to lift the limp and naked form they had been sheltering.

"Gentlemen, look at me," Steyrer's voice eased into the space between the rumbling and clatter as if it had been greased.

Garrison and Goniff lifted their heads – froze, caught like rabbits in the headlights of an onrushing car. Casino, who had started to move forward again, also froze as light gleamed on the Luger in the Kommandant's hand.

"Keep looking.... good. It seems the _Ching_ was correct. But you will have to be satisfied with your partial victory: anything more is futile. Now, may I at last know the name of the man who has thwarted me?"

Casino expected Garrison to swear and tell him to go to Hell. Instead, he answered in a calm, almost dispassionate voice: "Lieutenant Craig Garrison."

Though Casino couldn't see Steyrer's face, he did see his start at those words. "Garrison? Now where—?" Then he laughed. "Fool! So that is what—" He stopped himself, and looked directly into Garrison's face. "I am no longer surprised by your victory – which after all is only a minor... delay. Which you will not even witness."

"Because you are going to kill me," Garrison's voice was oddly listless. "With a gun, I notice, not one of your magician's tricks."

"I am not the Magician," Steyrer said. "Nor are you. I am comforted that even if you escape, you will not live beyond your twenty-fifth birthday. You have been a danger long enough."

What's he up to? Casino thought. He's keeping their attention on him... Maybe he's got soldiers coming. Well, he can't see me.

Cheered by that thought, he bent down, picked up a rock the size of an orange, and edged forward, careful to keep out of the light.

As Steyrer levelled his gun, he hurled the stone straight at him.

It hit directly on his forehead.

The gun cracked out in reflex, the sound of the bullet skittering off the walls becoming lost in the echoes and the sound of Steyrer's scream. Casino sent a second rock following the first. It missed, but it wasn't needed. Steyrer crumpled, vanishing from the sight of the men below him.

As if a spell had, indeed, been broken, Garrison rolled to one side, dragging the limp body with him; Goniff went the other way.

Casino waited a moment, but there was no movement above. Steyrer was unconscious, or dead. Either way, no longer a danger. Ignoring him, Casino dropped beside Garrison, who was kneeling, holding the woman he had rescued.

"She's dead," he said, the words a description of his own voice and expression. He took a great shuddering gulp of breath. "We tried. We couldn't get the others—"

Casino gripped his arm. "Warden, these people need you. Someone's gotta get them outa here."

Garrison shook his head wearily.

Casino schooled his voice, injected sarcasm: "So whadda we do, Lieutenant?"

For ten, perhaps twenty seconds, he thought it wasn't going to work, then Garrison surged to his feet, pulling both Casino and Goniff with him. "Com'on," he growled. "There are _SS_ troops ahead. We'll try to bluff them—"

 

_The Ceremony of Innocence_

 

As it turned out, no bluff was necessary. By the time they reached the outer cave there were no troops guarding the empty pens. Casino never found out what had happened to them – whether they had run or whether they had been overwhelmed and torn to pieces by sheer weight of numbers – but the prisoners were already crowded in the tunnel to the courtyard, and some of them were holding guns.

Garrison shoved his way through to the head of the line. One look at the ancient wood and iron doors that barred their way set him yelling for Casino. "Can you get these open?" he demanded, when the panting safecracker arrived.

"Maybe," Casino said, grateful to be asked something he could answer. "The wood's so old it's almost as hard as the metal. The rock's softer. We'll have to blow the hinges out from it, see."

"With what?" Goniff demanded. "We used them grenades back in the cave."

"How much explosive d'you need?" Garrison asked Casino.

"Not a lot. See, the rock's friable. We could chip it away if we had the time."

"Which we 'aven't."

"An' I could use mud to shape a charge, if only we had one..."

"Black powder from the cartridges?" Garrison asked. "Will that do?"

"You bet it will, Warden."

Garrison whirled to face Zender. "Rabbi, if any of your people are strong enough to help, I need all the hands I can get to collect the powder from the cartridges. I'll show them how if—"

But even before Zender could utter a word, several men were pushing forward, holding out their stolen weapons. A woman called that she had worked in a ammunition factory – and suddenly, the job was literally taken out of Garrison's hands.

In less than five minutes, Casino began packing his charges, and everyone else except Garrison began retreating as far back down the tunnel as they dared go, flattening themselves into the guard-cubbies. Goniff hovered at a halfway safe distance, glancing uncertainly back up the tunnel.

The rumbling noise was growing louder by the second. It sounded like a massive kettle coming to the boil, ready to send its lid flying to the ceiling and behind that was the awful slithery, grinding noise that they had heard in the cave.

Casino tore off his shirttails to make fuses, and lit them with Garrison's lighter, before grabbing the Lieutenant's arm and haring up the tunnel, matching strides with him, Goniff fleeing before them.

They felt rather than heard the explosion, its heat rolling over them before retreating like a wave on a beach under the pressure of even hotter air coming down the tunnel.

"Everybody out!" Garrison yelled, first in German, then French, Italian and English. The prisoners were too weak to be capable of a stampede, but the Americans ruthlessly drove them before them out into the damp evening.

The rain had almost stopped, but the courtyard was awash.

"Everyone into the trucks," Garrison ordered.

"There ain't enough room, Warden."

"There'll have to be. Everyone has to crowd in or hang on as best they can," Garrison snapped. "Take the wheel of that first one and move it!"

 

_Holding the Centre_

 

In less than five minutes the trucks, overloaded and desperately slow, were travelling in convoy down a road-turned-river. Goniff clung to the wheel of the second in line, concentrating desperately on keeping the engine running and the wheels turning. The water was well above the hubcaps, the tarmac beneath the tires slippery with mud under the water – if it was tarmac.

'Ope Casino knows where the road is. Never thought we'd be doing the Murmansk run. An' at this rate we won't make the Lines before Christmas. In 2004—

Christ! The tires—

At least, that was his immediate diagnosis, that a tire had blown, then that the truck was sliding off the road. He jammed on the brakes, but the shuddering continued, and he noticed that the truck ahead was braking too, shuddering in a different tempo. But then the whole world was shuddering, as if a heat haze lay over the Vosages.

Goniff put on the parking brake and stuck his head out of the window. Behind him, the other trucks with their festoons of people had also halted.

At first he thought it was just sheets of rain that made the great rock tower of the Drachgiftzahn waver behind them. As he watched, he knew it was more than that, and thought of the steam trapped under tons of rock, and about the time his Aunt Marge's boiler had blown up and taken the kitchen with it.

The peak shifted on its base. The sides bulged, as if the hill had drawn a breath, then it sagged in on itself like a deflated balloon.

Again, Goniff heard a dull thud like a shell exploding. Seconds later, it was followed by a slap of wind that pin-cushioned his cheeks with raindrops. The castle poured down the mountainside, slipping and sliding like a child on ice until it piled on top of the monastery.

This time, the noise that followed was a deep groan that went on forever.

Clouds of water vapour rose in thin streamers and hovered like ectoplasm, gathering into a slow cloud that roiled in the wind like a great serpent before fading into the rain.

Goniff shivered, and howled his horn at Casino to get a move on.

It soon became clear, though, that they were not going to get very far. The force of rain doubled and redoubled; Goniff reckoned he could have seen further in a London peasouper. Unwilling to crash into the rear of Casino's truck or be crashed into himself, he gradually reduced his speed to a crawl.

It wasn't long after that that Garrison arrived on his own feet a good deal faster than Goniff was driving, leaped onto the running board, and pointed to the side of the road, before disappearing forward, no doubt to give the same signal to Casino in the leading truck.

 

"This is approximately where we are," Garrison said, pointing at the soaking silk map, though he did not seem by any means as sure as usual.

The Council of War consisted of Goniff, Casino, Zender, and two men and a woman from among the prisoners who seemed to have their wits and strength still about them. Goniff hadn't enquired as to who they were, though Garrison and Zender seemed to know. "And this is where we need to be, safely behind our own Lines. Right now our assets consist of five trucks with half-full tanks, a number of guns with no ammunition, and perhaps four hundred people more than half of whom are already dying of starvation and typhus and Christ knows what else."

"What about Chief and Actor?" Casino asked.

"They're taking the film to SHAEF." Garrison gnawed at his lower lip as he thought, then shook his head. "We'll have to keep taking chances and praying. Goniff'll go with me. The rest of you stay here. If... if we're not back in three hours, get the convoy moving again. Try to get to Savenne. There's a man called Troyes. He's a farmer – Rabbi, you're to ask him in French if he has milk from the black cow. He will say that the black cow has died. You will say you remember her being born. He may be able to find someone to help you."

"It's a long way to Savenne," Zender said.

"Yes. That's why it's not my first choice of plan. I'm going to try to disguise us as a German troop convoy – preferably one with an escort. Once word gets through about Drachgiftzahn, there'll be trucks enough on the road. Rabbi—"

"Call me Benjamin, please, Lieutenant."

"Benjamin, I need you to find those men here who're fit to use a gun – and who won't look too out of place on top of those trucks in German uniform."

"None of us will wear German uniform," one of the others put in.

"I don't like wearing it much myself – I prefer my own – but it's your best chance, and your only chance of avoiding someone looking inside the trucks."

Zender nodded reluctantly. "I'll try to persuade them." He silenced the continuing objections with a gesture that had elements of cutting throats about it. "Where are you going to get the uniforms?"

"There's a German supply depot marked here, about three miles away—"

"I was on the work gangs that dug the underground storage areas," one of the unofficial command group stated. "You'll never break in there, Lieutenant."

"I don't intend to try," Garrison answered. "There are other ways. Come on, Goniff."

 

Casino paced up and down, wondering how he could have been so stupid. He should never have let Garrison and Goniff—

What the Hell was he going to do if they didn't come back?

A black cow?

Jesus H Christ.

He swung in his tracks before he ran down an innocent bush, only to run down Zender instead.

"What the Hell are you doing?" he snarled.

Zender rose with dignity. "The only thing that any of us can do – praying to God for a miracle."

Casino bristled. "You already got one; He sent you Garrison."

"He is an extraordinary man." There was something in Zender's tone that Casino did not quite understand.

"They broke the mould," he said, because it was true. "But if you ever tell him I said so..."

Zender chuckled. "I don't think I need to tell him what you think of him. Come, rest. He will need your strength when he gets back."

 

It was a long walk to the depot through the pouring rain. Goniff came rapidly to the conclusion that sooner or later they were going to sink in mud up to their eyeballs and drown, if they didn't simply drown from breathing. At least Garrison's bulk broke the force of the wind, which otherwise would have come close to sweeping Goniff off his feet. Even the Lieutenant staggered occasionally.

Every now and then the ground shuddered, as if it was having a heart-attack.

Goniff decided it was time to venture an opinion. "Warden, this isn't going to work."

"What else do you suggest, Goniff?" Garrison asked tiredly. "That we should have left those people to die? That we should leave them now?"

Goniff scrubbed at his hair, vaguely aware of a note in Garrison's voice that he had never heard there before, had never expected to hear there. "We could ask for help from the Resistance or the _Maquis._ "

"There's nothing I'd like more."

"You have the code words, don't you?"

"Yes, but not the contacts. Not here. That's all 'need to know' stuff'-"

Some sixth sense warned Goniff even before the horn blared. He grabbed Garrison and jerked him to the side of the road as the half-track loomed out of the rain-shrouded dusk.

Automatically, he reached for his gun, even as a head appeared, shouting at them in German.

Garrison answered haltingly in the same language, his voice shaking with fatigue and emotion that was only partly faked. Goniff caught the words _"Gestapo"_ and "Drachgiftzahn".

The driver was well-trained enough to ask for Garrison's papers. Once satisfied, he returned them and gestured to them to get aboard.

Garrison spoke very quickly and very softly to Goniff. "There's a supply convoy bogged down about a mile from here. They're on the way to haul them out. We'll ride along with them and wait for our chance."

 

When they found the trucks, abandoned at the side of the road, there was no sign of their drivers or guards.

Like the ruddy _Marie Celeste,_ Goniff thought to himself. The Kraut non-com was calling HQ, but plainly they had no satisfactory answers for him. Meanwhile, the other Germans were peering through breaks in the mist at what was left of Drachgiftzahn, and not liking what they saw.

Goniff wondered if that was what had made the lorry crews scarper. He wished he could, because the Warden had that look in his eye that meant the Krauts were likely to get one big surprise any second now.

Goniff sighed, tightened his grip on the pistol he had filched without the German trooper noticing, and waited for Garrison's signal.

 

Once they had disposed of the occupants of the half-track, it didn't take them long to break into the trucks: without his expert present, Garrison simply shot off the locks. Two of the trucks were carrying guns and ammunition, but the other was filled with blankets, food and clothing.

 

They were piling two crates of neatly packed _Wehrmacht_ tunics into the half-track, when a voice spoke sharply from the shadows. The language didn't sound like German to Goniff, but he copied Garrison as the Lieutenant quickly raised his hands.

Someone came up behind them and clumsily – in Goniff's opinion – took their guns.

Then a man tracked round in front of them. Goniff was stunned to see that he was wearing the uniform of a captain of the Free French Army, and carried a businesslike Sten pointed straight at Garrison's chest.

"We're on the same side," Garrison said. "You're part of a Jedburgh team?"

"Indeed, _m'sieur_. And if you know that code name, you're either one of us or know more than is good for you."

"I'm from A.I. But I did my basic training with the Stately 'Omes of England."

"Not at Camp X?"

Garrison shook his head. "I've never been north of the Canadian border."

"Good enough. I am Captain Louis Perigot." The Frenchman shouldered his Sten and held out his hand, which Garrison clasped with feeling. "What can I do for you, Mister...?"

"Garrison. Lieutenant Garrison."

"Ah."

"Ah?"

"I have heard of you. So, I repeat, what can we do for you, Lieutenant?"

"I have five trucks full of rescued civilian prisoners..."

" _Nom d'un chien!_ Your reputation is not undeserved! What are you going to do with them?"

"We were going to disguise ourselves as a German convoy and try to get through to the Allied Lines."

Perigot shook his head. "The roads are clogged from here to the Front. The chaos would aid you, but the Allied planes would not. They are bombing and strafing every military vehicle they see – and even a Red Cross is no protection now the Germans have started painting them on the roofs of their transports. They are desperate, _mon ami._ "

"So are we. The prisoners are from Drachgiftzahn—"

"What?"

"And they need shelter, and food, and medical help—"

Perigot thought for a moment. "There is a hospital in Rhemsbourg which the Boche have been using. We will simply have to borrow it, along with your armoured car and these uniforms."

 

The next three days were in their own peculiar way a worse nightmare than the few hours they had spent in Drachgiftzahn. Men from the _Maquis_ , already champing at the bit in rage at being ordered to stick with sabotage until the Allies came, had joyfully leaped at the call to arms.

So far, the Germans didn't seem to have realised that they had lost control of the hospital, mainly because Garrison had 'persuaded' its director to declare it quarantined because of an outbreak of dysentery. The German patients had been relocated. Not that there had been many of them in the first place. The Allied Lines were moving too fast for the wounded to be evacuated.

Now, though, the hospital was overcrowded, though their new friends assured them that conditions were far better than in Natzweiler, where many of them had been imprisoned. Casino found it difficult to believe; the place stank of vomit and carbolic soap. That would have made it difficult enough to eat, even if it had not been so obvious that they needed the food far less than the rest of their company. Who also needed DDT and morphine and penicillin, and none of those were available, would ever be available...

Casino began to wonder if Steyrer really had had magical powers, and had somehow cursed them into this nightmare.

At least they had help. Apart from the local French doctor and his father – eighty years young with a wealth of experience from the Great War – a group of nuns had arrived less than five hours after they had taken over the hospital, together with an Irish priest who had been scathing about his homeland's neutrality. They'd been followed within minutes by a gaggle of motherly women who, it seemed to Casino, never stopped either working or gabbling.

Garrison and Perigot had both warned them of their danger, and the women had earned Casino's undying jealousy by getting away with ignoring them. He would have to learn the trick of it. Of course, Garrison couldn't send nuns to jail...

Could he?

Contact with Perigot had meant access to a radio. That allowed them to shout for help, but it also meant that orders could be shouted back at them.

Those orders were clear and precise: they were to stay here and help defend the hospital "until the Allies overrun it."

That could, Casino thought disconsolately, be weeks away... if it happened at all.

Garrison was everywhere, so unfailing in compassion and practicality that Casino, furious at his own inadequacy, had to stay clear of him to avoid a Court Martial offence. Even more annoyingly, Goniff never seemed to stray far from the Lieutenant's side, finding reserves that Casino had been positive he did not possess.

Damn it, he'd never been any good at nursing, had been sure that Goniff wasn't any better... until he watched his friend sit beside a stinking, starving woman who looked seventy and was really thirty, holding her hand and telling her stories in a dire mixture of Cockney and fractured German until she died.

Casino fought down his nausea, bottled up his anger, and worked until there was no other course but to sit down where he had been standing, prop his back against the wall, and collapse into exhausted sleep.

 

_The Coming Hour_

 

Poked awake, he found Goniff peering down at him. "Whaddya want? I need my beauty sleep."

"Don't seem to have done any good, from what I can see."

Casino looked at his watch. "That's because I ain't had any. I've only been asleep half an hour."

"Nearer thirteen," Goniff corrected him.

"What?"

"The Warden said to let you sleep."

"Well, why didn't ya?"

Goniff looked away, scrubbed at his untidy hair in embarrassment, then came out with it: "I'm worried about 'im."

"Look, don't you have enough to worry about?"

"He ain't slept since we came here. I've 'ad a go at 'im, but 'e won't lissen. You enjoy yellin' at 'im, so I thought you might like a turn."

 

Garrison was leaning on the sill of an open window, taking great gulps of cold air. Wordlessly, Casino handed him a mug of the dreadful mixture that passed for coffee this side of the Lines.

"I'll take over, babe," he said. "Go get some rest while you can."

"No," Garrison said harshly, then, quickly, "if I do, I'll start thinking – and I can't afford that yet."

"You can't afford to live without sleep, either."

But Garrison was no longer listening to him. The loss of his attention alerted Casino. He peered over his shoulder, following his gaze down into the street. Two men were running towards the hospital, heads down, backs bent as they carried something heavy between them slung in an old striped blanket.

"Trouble," Garrison said, pushing himself upright.

"Can't you mind your own fucking business, Warden?"

The moment he said it, realising what he'd invited, he braced himself for that gentle voice of reason that so infuriated him, expecting it to point out that if Garrison himself had minded his own business Casino would be dead – but Garrison just shook his head, didn't even tell him to shut up, didn't try to argue at all...

Something in the Lieutenant's expression scared him more than Steyrer had done. He hesitated, unwilling to trust his own judgement in this, particularly after what Goniff had said, but...

– if Garrison breaks we've had it –

"It's not my damn business, either. And I tell you, Warden, if you drag me into something like this just one more time, I'm finished. You got that?" Try as he might, he couldn't get the necessary venom into his voice, for all he guessed that it was what Garrison needed.

He had half-turned away in failure when a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Casino..." Garrison's voice shook a little, but his eyes were steady. "Just one more time?"

Casino gulped. "I... I guess so."

"Thanks, babe."

Casino grinned. "Don't mention it. You sure you want me to help?"

"Casino, you always help."

Glowing with a pride that he could never have articulated or explained, Casino followed him down into the reception, ready to do anything he asked.

 

At the Doctor's orders, the two men had placed their burden on to the kitchen table that served him for both examination and surgery. Father Doyle joined them, eager to help.

" _Mon Dieu!_ "

"Mary Mother of God..."

Casino pushed forward to look, then swung away, wishing he hadn't; the man was surely dead. If he wasn't, he wasn't going to live very long. He was naked, his clothes charred away so they hung on a spider's web of intact thread, his skin mottled and cratered as if by some dreadful disease.

The men who had carried the stretcher were jabbering in French. Casino didn't understand any of it, and Garrison didn't look as if he was listening, let alone as if he was willing to translate.

Luckily, there was someone else who might. "What's going on?" he asked Father Doyle, who had stepped back, one hand covering his mouth.

"They say..." the younger man hesitated, gulped. "They say..." Then he crossed himself and fled, both at speed. Casino could hear retching before he reached the door.

"They say the dragon has been freed from Drachgiftzahn," Zender's calm voice interposed. "This is not the only man they have found like this. They say... they say that the Germans started to flee when they heard Drachgiftzahn had fallen... that they are fleeing right past us... that they have abandoned everything, and are heading back to Germany.

This sounded like wishful thinking to Casino – and to Garrison, apparently. "More likely sending every man they've got to meet the Allied advance." He turned to the Frenchmen and addressed them for a moment. At their answer, he looked about for Goniff, caught his attention with a glance, and said, "Perigot's at the depot. These men came from there. I think we'd better take a look."

 

It didn't seem to have stopped raining since before they had left Drachgiftzahn, and thunder rumbled in the background. The deserted streets were rivers, turning the town into an improvised Venice. Having been in that city with the rest of the team only a few months before, Casino kept expecting to see gondolas.

The gates to the camp stood wide. Not a single sentry patrolled. The parade square was a formal lake, only a few inches deep.

It wasn't empty, though. Men and women in civilian clothes were wading through the water, carrying bundles and baskets full of anything that had been left behind. It seemed to have been quite a lot.

A member of the _Maquis_ directed them to follow the road, which ended in a long sloping ramp leading down and into the hillside. Perigot met them at the bottom, where massive armoured doors barred the way, grey and impregnable and swastika embellished.

"It does appears to have been an evacuation," he said. "The men, vehicles and heavy weapons have gone; everything else has been left behind. The power's down. The storms seem to have shorted the generator. The main doors to the underground depot are jammed and we cannot get them open."

"Well, if the burned men were down there, there must be another way in."

"Indeed, but the place is flooded. We are pumping it out now."

"What's stored there that's so important?" Casino demanded.

Perigot looked away. "Ammunition," he said. "Explosives. Gas. Weapons."

"And regional _SD_ and _Gestapo_ records," Zender added dryly. "Also everything taken from those being sent to Natzweiler and Drachgiftzahn."

"Loot?" Garrison asked, looking very sharply indeed at Zender.

"Most of that will have been sent to Berlin."

"There's something fishy about this," was Goniff's opinion.

"He's right," Garrison said. "No commander in his right mind would leave the records and supplies here for the enemy to get his hands on, whether it was the _Maquis_ or the Allied armies. And Steyrer told us that Patton would never get beyond the Vosages."

"What's more, whoever painted that swastika didn't know his left from his right," Goniff said. "Them arms is pointing the wrong way."

So that was it...

"I wonder..." Zender mused. "The swastika isn't just a Nazi symbol. You might paint it that way for protection, like a pentacle."

"Steyrer's pentacle didn't protect him," Garrison pointed out, "and we're not going to find out standing here. Let's go take a look inside. And you, Benjamin. It's what you were here for in the first place, isn't it?."

Zender was suddenly the cynosure of all eyes.

"What do you mean?" Perigot added. "I thought he was a prisoner at Drachgiftzahn."

"So I was—"

"So was Casino," Garrison stated. "I suspect you had more in common with him than you admitted. Steyrer seemed to think so – and he was certainly right about us."

Without another word, he strode back along the road and up the slope of the hillside, Perigot and Goniff trailing him.

Casino looked at Zender and raised his eyebrows.

"Does it matter if he is right or wrong?" the Rabbi said. "We are what we are. And he is what he is—"

"Casino!"

"Coming!" Casino called back. He'd find out later what Zender meant. Right now Garrison needed him elsewhere.

 

When they caught up with Garrison, Goniff and Perigot, near the top of the hill, they were clustered, along with a couple of men in stained blue overalls, around an open manhole. Besides it, a three inch hose spewed water onto the already-soaking ground where a pump clattered and belched.

Goniff peered down the hole, then pulled back with an expression of disgust. "Warden, I don't like this place," he said. "It smells like down in them caves."

Perigot pulled a face. "All I can smell is sewage overflowing from the latrines."

"Is anyone still down there?"

"No," Perigot said. "Not since we went down to retrieve the last party after they failed to return."

"Didn't you hear anything?"

"Yeah, they must've screamed like banshees when they got fried." That was Goniff.

Perigot shook his head. "The acoustics of the place are odd. You can't hear anything up here but distorted echoes. It's impossible to keep in touch. Once you're down there you're on your own."

Garrison shrugged that off. "Can you lend us flashlights?" he asked. "And guns?"

Perigot grinned. "Those we have to spare – courtesy of the last owners."

 

Garrison went down first, Goniff behind him, then Zender, and Casino bringing up the rear. Beside them, the pipe shushed to itself as it sucked water from below.

It was a long climb. The ladder was bolted in sections to the concrete side-wall, and ended in a makeshift platform composed of packing cases.

To their left the water edged a rising concrete ramp leading to the massive sliding doors. Above the water line, the concrete was bone dry.

Odd, Casino thought. If this flooding was due to rainwater draining down under the doors, that concrete ramp should be at least damp. But where else could the water have come from?

Their flashlights sent silver streamers across the still water, perhaps five inches deep, perhaps five fathoms, which stretched into the unlit depths of the store. High metal racking stalked in that water, shelves stacked with dull gleaming shells, and boxes stamped with unintelligible numbers and plainer warnings. They marched into the blackness, too far for the beams to reach.

It felt like the place had been deserted for aeons, not just a few hours.

"Bleedin' Hell!" Goniff yelped, clutching Casino's arm. "Warden, there's some other bugger down here."

Everyone looked wildly round, the beams zigzagging like searchlights trying to locate an enemy bomber.

"Where?" Garrison asked.

"Not sure. But there was a light that weren't ours."

"Turn off your flashlights, all of you."

It was the last thing Casino wanted to do, in that place that had already claimed two lives at least, but the habit of obedience was strong.

The lights clicked off, and they were alone in the dark.

Except that they weren't.

Deep in the forest of metal, light reflected from water.

"I guess we'd better take a look," Garrison said resignedly, easing himself down into the water and feeling with his feet for the bottom.

"I'll come with you," Casino offered. Much as he disliked the thought of what might be lurking in the depths of this place, he disliked the idea of Garrison vanishing into their depths alone even more.

He might not come back. Then they'd have to go and look for him, and what might that lead to?

"Okay," Garrison agreed. "Goniff, you and Benjamin stay here. Whatever happens, don't come after us – not even if you think you hear my voice. We'll find our way back to you."

The water was surprisingly warm. It came to waist level, which meant that they could carry both guns and flashlights above it. Garrison tested each step before he made it, though the floor beneath the water seemed smooth and solid enough.

From this distance, the pump sounded like laboured breathing. Behind it, Casino thought he could hear whispering and, twice, Garrison stopped to listen carefully.

Maybe it was just Goniff and Zender, but it didn't sound like them. And they were invisible too, hidden by the racks.

When he turned the flash on Garrison's face, he saw the same tears of sweat he could feel running down his own.

They'd lost sight of the other men, of the main doors. This might be another world, another time. The reflections led them onwards, moth-flitting about the shell casings.

"Where's it coming from?"

"I don't know," Garrison admitted. "Like Goniff, I don't like the smell of this air..."

"You think this place is connected to Drachgiftzahn?"

"No. No, it can't be..." But Garrison had hesitated before he answered. "It's nearly ten miles..."

Did distance mean anything to ghosts? Or demons? Had it meant anything to Steyrer?

We didn't see him dead.

Garrison stopped. Casino stumbled, clutched Garrison's arms to keep upright and hung on for reassurance.

Just ahead of them was a dim glow, as if someone had left a nightlight burning beneath the water. Half-forgotten folklore learned at his great-granny's knee drifted through Casino's mind. He reacted with anger: "What is that? Fuckin' fairies?"

He was not expecting an answer, but he got one anyway. "White phosphorous," Garrison said, sounding oddly relieved. "Out of water it burns worse than a flame-thrower."

Casino silently cursed himself for a fool. "Yeah, that's real nice. See, Warden, once the water level drops far enough and the phosphor's exposed, it burns through that casin'. What're'ya willin' to bet there's an explosive charge just waiting for it to act as a fuse. The explosion'll spread it over the widest possible area."

"Into the ammunition and the gas—"

"Then boom!" Casino said graphically. "It'll take half the town and anything sitting on top of here with it."

"Well, it's safe enough while it's still underwater. We'd better get back and make sure they reverse those pumps."

 

Oddly, the walk back didn't seem to take half as long as the journey out, and Zender and Goniff hauled them out of the water with obvious relief.

"This place is booby-trapped," Garrison explained. He clambered to his feet. "We'd better get out of here."

"Warden, we've taken a look at the doors and—"

"Later, Goniff. You go first. Casino, you next."

Goniff obeyed immediately, moving fast. Casino followed more slowly, keeping his eyes on his friend's filthy boots as they retreated up the shaft of light falling from the manhole.

One second he was climbing carefully, the metal rungs solid under his hands and feet, the next he was toppling backwards, still clutching the ladder as it parted company with the wall and itself with a screech of breaking metal.

He remembered seeing Goniff's face, shocked and horrified, peering down at him from above, then he was falling into darkness.

_Let go, fool!_

He kicked himself free, hitting the water spread-eagled.

In the breathless, whirling dark, he heard mad far-off laughter, smelt the stink of Drachgiftzahn, felt its steamy heat on his face.

Maybe he was there for minutes, maybe hours, then—

He was soaking wet, bruised – and breathing, stretched out on hard, dry concrete.

"Casino!" Garrison's voice held a note of fear that Casino could never have believed was meant for him. "Casino, you okay?"

Casino opened his eyes, looked up into Garrison's anxious face bathed in the stark light of the flash, and everything else vanished. "Christ, I ache..."

Garrison sat back on his heels, smiling. "No sharp pains? I'd've diagnosed cracked ribs, at least. Guess you must have gone in head first; with a skull as hard as yours—"

With astonishingly little effort, Casino ignored the insult. "Goniff?" he asked urgently.

"Went on up. "

Casino sighed with relief. "Fuck it, that ladder felt as safe as houses."

"Steyrer must have thought that about his castle," Garrison said dryly. "Looks like we'll have to wait for Perigot to get us out."

"Great. So we're stuck down here with—" His eyes fell on the waterline, and the wide strip of wet concrete above it. "Oh, shit. I can still hear that blasted pump."

"Goniff doesn't know about the phosphorous," Garrison said. "My fault. I was too anxious to get out of here. But there is another chance. You feel well enough to take a look at the doors?"

"Goniff and I already have," Zender said. "They have been disabled from the inside."

"I'm sure you're right," Garrison said stonily. "All the same, I think Casino and I had better check."

 

It didn't take long. "I hate to agree with the little Limey," Casino said, "but this is fucked-up good."

"Can you repair it?"

"Probably, but there's no way I can get these suckers to move without power. They must weigh tons."

Garrison slammed his fist against the metal in frustration. "Shit! If only I'd told Goniff about the pump."

"Yeah, well, you couldn't know that ladder was going to give."

"I know this place is full of booby traps. Someone sawed through that ladder."

"Did they?"

"Of course they did. How else could it have happened?"

"I-" Casino stopped, unable to bring himself to articulate the suspicions lurking in the depths of his mind. Garrison wouldn't believe them – or wouldn't allow himself to believe them.

"Well?"

"I think," Zender said, "that Casino feels, as I do, that the same thing is wrong here as was wrong at Drachgiftzahn."

"Oh, for Christ's sake—"

"What's that?" Zender interrupted before Garrison was even partway into his stride.

Garrison's gun was instantly in his hand. His glance demanded details.

But this time Casino heard it too, a slithering noise, somewhere to their rear.

Why was it so horribly familiar?

His mind flew back to Drachgiftzahn, to the fissure.

Garrison had turned to face the darkness. The beam of his flashlight quartered the depot, trailing even deeper shadows behind it.

It touched the remains of the ladder.

Casino's heart stopped.

Something long and sinewy was snaking down the wall, rubbing itself against the water hose that was already going to kill them all.

Casino reached for his gun, but Garrison was already racing towards the platform, hardly slowed by the knee-deep water.

"Warden, no!"

"Lieutenant, don't—"

Garrison, though, vaulted up onto the platform, right underneath the descending serpent, arms raised in what might be willing sacrifice.

Then he grabbed it just behind the head, jumped down into the water and came splashing back, dragging it with him.

Casino stood paralysed, unable to run, unable to breathe, waiting for death at the hands of the only man he had ever willingly followed. Then he saw Garrison's triumphant grin, and finally identified what he was carrying. "Shit! It's a power cable."

"Yeah. Goniff came through after all."

"God bless the little Limey. We might just get these doors open yet."

 

'Might', he admitted to himself what seemed like hours later, was probably what Chief would have called 'a tad optimistic.' His fingers seemed to have turned to thumbs, his brain to mush, as his heart beat in time with the shushing of the pump that counted down their death sentence.

The worst was that he had to turn his back on the dark, on whatever was lurking there.

Zender was murmuring something in an unfamiliar language, a prayer or a chant, but he kept the beam steady on Casino's hands as they worked their own familiar magic. Garrison stood at their side, gun in hand, peering into the darkness.

Though he trusted them completely, Casino could not help an occasional glance back into the depot.

The water was visibly sinking, retreating down the ramp in soft, mocking waves. A soft mist rose from it.

"Easy," Garrison said, the tips of his fingers moving to rest on Casino's shoulder; they were trembling slightly.

As if the touch freed him to move again, Casino returned to his task, commentating because he dare not listen to the silence behind Zender's chant and what might lie in it. "Just let me make this connection... have to bypass the fuses... Nearly done now. We should at least be able to shift them a couple of feet... Enough to get out,"

"No. You have to get them to open wide."

"Warden—"

"Just do it, Casino."

Zender said, with approval, "It is an old remedy against evil, bringing light – particularly sunlight – into such a place."

"Maybe," said Garrison, "but it'll also produce a chemical reaction that'll turn the white phosphorous into red and make it stable."

"Yeah, well, Warden, I see just one problem with that," said Casino. "What sunlight? The sun ain't shown its face for the past week—"

As he spoke, he made the final connections, reached for the lever and pulled it. The great doors groaned open.

Light dazzled from metal and water, haloed Garrison, spilled right into the back of the storage depot, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet away.

The back wall was solid concrete, the racks and their contents ordinary and no more menacing than they ought to be. The place smelt of stale water, nothing more.

Casino caught Garrison's rather shamefaced look and decided not to mention his own thoughts. Only one thing puzzled him: "It's still thundering," he complained, looking up at the cloudless sky.

Garrison very nearly smiled. "That's Allied artillery, Casino. With any luck, they'll be here before morning."

 

At four o'clock, the Allied tanks rumbled down the narrow streets, cheered wildly by the populace. Perigot's men abandoned both the camp and the hospital to meet them, their armbands marking them as friendly forces. Perigot himself had gone to find the local Commander, in the hope of getting more medics and food for their charges, and Zender had also vanished, whether with him or not, Garrison didn't know.

 

Casino heard the sound of raised voices, and dived through into the lobby where he found a one of the newly arrived soldiers in confrontation with two determinedly un-bilingual Frenchmen.

Their visitor wore combat fatigues and a Major's oak leaves. "You got a guy called Garrison here?" he demanded of Casino, abandoning the Frenchmen as hopeless cases.

"Who's askin'?" Casino demanded.

The Major grinned. "Well, you sure ain't either a Frog or a Kraut," he said, in wonderfully familiar accents. "It's a long way from New York, pal."

"Sure is. But you ain't answered my question."

"You ain't answered mine. An' I asked first."

"I'm Lieutenant Garrison." The voice came from behind them.

"Major Harris. Which answers your buddy's question too. The General wants to see you right away."

 

 

_The Darkness Drops Again_

 

What amounted to a staff convoy was drawn up in the orchard. Recognising the belligerent-looking General encouraging a dog that looked embarrassingly like him to evacuate a jeep, Garrison hurried to meet him, hoping to God that recognition wouldn't be mutual.

"Lieutenant Garrison reporting as ordered, sir," he said, throwing in a salute even though he wasn't in uniform. "You wanted to see me."

General George Patton glared at him. "No, but you're wanted at SHAEF, pronto. There's a plane standing by."

"Sir, I—"

"Just do as you're told," Patton snapped. "But then you never were any good at that, were you, Garrison? Sure, I remember you."

"Sir, my men—"

"Harris will take care of that. Harris, get those fuckers outa my hair."

"Yes, sir."

The General swept on, the bull terrier at his heels giving Garrison a look so reminiscent of its owner that the Lieutenant took a step backwards.

Major Harris's was much more amused. "Old Blood and Guts is in a good mood today," he observed. "I think we'll get you all on your way before he changes his mind."

 

Bundled, along with Zender, into a C47 and flown across Europe, he was ejected into night, with the witches-hatted towers of a chateau outlined against the stars.

Someone took Zender away, but put a cup of vile coffee into his hand in exchange. He gulped it down, trying to use the taste to beat his apprehension into submission.

He didn't want to think, certainly didn't want to think why he had been summoned here and not allowed to rejoin his men in England.

Had Actor and Chief blown it? Oh dear Christ, were they even still alive? He'd brought Casino and Goniff through, but what if he'd lost the others—

Maybe that was the price he was going to have to pay.

He was still brooding ten minutes later when a full bird Colonel arrived to escort him into an elegant room where logs burned in a massive fireplace, and their light gleamed gold on table-legs and mirror frames.

With astonishment, he recognised the pleasant-faced man who turned to face him, and automatically came to attention.

"Sit, Lieutenant, before you fall over," General Dwight D Eisenhower said easily.

With a feeling of new unreality Garrison obeyed, scanning the faces and insignia of the group of men lounging at varyingly comfortable positions about the elegant, untidy room. Most of them weren't supposed to be in this part of France at this precise moment.

Maybe I've fallen asleep after all.

"We hope," Eisenhower was saying, "that your story might be the missing piece of this blasted puzzle."

"Puzzle, sir?"

"Did you read those papers before you photographed them?"

"I didn't even see them, sir." Then, when not one of the Generals made any comment, "I was downstairs in the General's office with another of my men making sure my safecracker wasn't disturbed."

"But he was the one who was captured?"

"Yes, sir. During the escape. But he managed to pass the film on—"

"Yes, yes, we know that part of it. Your people had it here within twenty four hours, though not without a little difficulty on the way. The point is, Lieutenant, the papers you filmed make it clear that the withdrawal of the forces around Alsace-Lorraine was quite deliberate. The orders from the German High Command were to lead both Patton and De Lattre into the Vosages while inflicting as much damage as possible, and not just on the Allies but the civilian population. They even intimated it was better to let their own men die in a lost cause rather than withdraw totally, though I gather the local commanders ignored that."

"These orders were directly from Hitler, sir?"

Eisenhower looked pleased, as if he were a high school teacher who had just been asked a surprisingly astute question. "No. From Himmler. And Himmler is now running scared. He's reversed his orders and ordered a complete withdrawal across the Rhine – never mind how we know. That's why General Patton's men were able to reach you so quickly – George is fuming at losing them," he added, in an aside to General Bradley, who did not look displeased at the information.

"The point is, Lieutenant, that all this panic on the Nazi side seems to stem from your little party at Drachgiftzahn. So, give us all the details. We'll decide what's important."

"Sir." Garrison took a few moment to steady himself, then started his report. He spoke as coldly and calmly as he could, trying to keep the memories as distant as his last good night's sleep seemed. It wasn't easy. Several times he thought he had lost it, but he was always allowed the space he needed to collect himself. The first time this happened, Zender tried to carry on the narrative, but Eisenhower waved him to silence. "Let the Lieutenant tell his story his way. You'll get your chance later." No-one else pushed him, and no-one questioned him, though General Montgomery looked as if he wanted to.

Garrison blanked them all out, looked directly into his Supreme Commander's sympathetic eyes and spoke to them alone, grateful for the understanding he was being given.

He left nothing out except his own feelings – and his last conversation with Steyrer – though he made a point of the Kommandant's references to Himmler.

"That's the wildest story I ever heard," Bradley commented, when Garrison had finished. "This Steyrer guy must've been totally off his rocker."

"Absurd," was Montgomery's opinion.

"I'd be inclined to agree with you," said Eisenhower, "if I didn't know rather more about this situation – and Lieutenant Garrison's previous exploits – than you do."

As Garrison blinked at him, astonished that Eisenhower even knew his name, Zender broke in: "I can confirm Lieutenant Garrison's story in every detail," he said quietly. "But I do not think Steyrer was madder than other members of the Reich. His madness just took a different form."

Eisenhower made a vague, dismissing gesture. "It's all the Devil's work, one way or another."

"I am inclined to agree with you, General. But Lieutenant Garrison did God's work."

No. I did mine. God... didn't answer any of us. Right now I don't care much if He exists or not.

"Hmm." Eisenhower cocked his head and regarded Garrison like a wise sparrow. "What do you think I should do to reward you, Lieutenant?"

"Sir?"

"Well, Mr Zender plainly thinks you deserve some sort of reward for your actions." Then, as Garrison shook his head, "What would you suggest I do?"

Garrison looked up suddenly, an absurd idea occurring to him. But maybe the Generals were just grateful enough to go along with it. "My men," he said. "They've been risking their lives almost daily for the past year and a half. If you really do know a little about their history, you know they've accomplished incredible – impossible – things for the war effort. Sir, their kind of war is nearly at an end, anyhow. If you could persuade the government to let them have their paroles now—"

"You're sure they'll go straight?" Eisenhower asked bluntly.

"Not sure, sir... but they've earned the right to try."

Eisenhower nodded. "I'm inclined to agree with you. Okay, Lieutenant, I'll see to it. Now you'd better be on your way home to England, while we try to figure out how to use this advantage you've given us."

Garrison blinked at him for a moment, trying to accept the fact that his part in this was over – that his men's part in the war was over.

Eisenhower patted his shoulder. "Off you go, son," he said gently. "There's a Lysander waiting for you."

As Garrison rose to his feet, with the General's hand unobtrusively steadying him, Zender stepped forwards. "Lieutenant." He stretched out his hand.

Garrison clasped it.

"Thank you," they said in unison.

"I hope we will meet again," said Zender.

Garrison, not sure of what he hoped, nodded, and escaped into the welcoming night.

 

It was early morning when he arrived back at their English HQ.

He got the jeep to drop him at the gates so that he could walk home. That way, he wouldn't wake his men with the engine.

They'd want answers, and he still wasn't sure he had any.

He wasn't alone, though. He'd been met at the gate by the huge blue-grey cat that had come with the house, and which now escorted him up the drive, sliding through the ground mist that laid a kindly blanket over the lawns, its tail a flag to follow as the birds sang their greeting to a sun robed in primrose and scarlet.

It was a different universe from the dark of Drachgiftzahn. Even the trees shimmered in gold and red, and the warm cream stone of the mansion was gilded in the dawnlight.

Its doors closed behind him like the arms of a mother; he was home.

Too tired to think any more, he dropped fully-clothed on his bed and into sleep. The cat, green eyes alert for danger that only she could see, took up guard on the pillow beside him and waited to be relieved.

 

When Garrison awoke he found that somehow he had shed his clothes and shoes, and was warm and comfortable between the blankets. The cat, which had been lying sprawled on the windowsill to catch the last of the evening sunlight, stretched, gave him a long look, then leaped gracefully to the floor and stalked out, no doubt to find something to eat. Garrison, who would never have admitted how fond he was of the animal, laughed, rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

 

He was dressing when there was a tap at the door, and Casino's head appeared round it. When he saw Garrison his face split in a big grin. "Finally woke up, huh? You took your time gettin' back. We were beginning to think the Brass'd thrown you in the loony-bin but I guess they bought your story, huh?

"The Brass bought the truth."

"You're kidding! Demons and dragons and everything?"

Garrison shook his head. "No. Because there wasn't anything supernatural about any of it."

Casino came fully into the room, shut the door and leaned against it. "You got a rational explanation for Drachgiftzahn? This I gotta hear."

"What did we actually see, Casino? Sure, Steyrer may have believed his own story but I have it on good authority that he was crazy," Garrison hid a smile. "The brandy he served Goniff and me was almost certainly drugged; the wind and steam in those tunnels – and our own imaginations – did the rest."

"What about the men burned to death in the depot? We never did find out how they died."

"We don't know how nine out of ten men in this war died; and it's better not to ask. Just—" He had been about to say, "Thank God" but it didn't seem appropriate. "Just thank our lucky stars that we didn't trigger the same booby trap."

"Yeah, sure, sure. Just one last thing, Warden: how the Devil did Steyrer know you were phoney?"

"Suspicious mind?" Garrison suggested. "Or maybe one of the guards spoke Italian and heard your version of it. Maybe Goniff's silence alerted him. Maybe I slipped up. Maybe the General got suspicious and called him before we arrived. There are a dozen valid explanations."

"'Cept for what he said to you, baby."

"Oh, that." Garrison shrugged. "He was trying to rattle me. Succeeded too, for a while," he added, with a wry smile.

"So when is your twenty-fifth birthday?"

The casual question did not, as he'd hoped, catch Garrison off guard. Instead, the Lieutenant cast a look of pure suspicion in his direction. "Why do you want to know?"

"So we can celebrate. Com'on, Warden, or do I have t'ask Actor?"

"December 5th," Garrison said, in the happy knowledge that if Eisenhower came through Casino wouldn't be around to celebrate. Well, that, at least.

Casino looked at him suspiciously. "That came far too easy. We gonna be on a mission? Nah, you couldn't know that yet."

"No mission, Casino. Except dinner. You going to join me?"

"What? Oh yeah," Casino swung an easy arm around Garrison's shoulders. "We'd better get down there before Goniff eats the next three month's rations. He's still catching up."

Normality.

 

Only it wasn't. Somehow, the world had changed, or perhaps it was simply his perception of it.

So Garrison decided as he sat on a fallen log in the Manor's extensive parkland, and watched the sun go down on the fifth day since they had returned from France. They had all been crisp and bright, but there was an air of waiting about the weather... waiting for winter and the dark.

He wished he could shake off the feeling that something else was waiting, watching...

It wasn't proving as easy to forget what had happened at Drachgiftzahn as he had hoped, wasn't even proving easy to simply enjoy these last weeks in the company of his men.

He'd have to tell them soon. The Colonel had called him in this morning to discuss his next assignment – about which he had protested strongly, despite the promotion that would come with it.

– I'm not a desk man, he'd told the Colonel

– You follow orders, Lieutenant, just like everyone else.

He'd been assured that the paperwork which would free his men had been sent by air to the States and it was now simply a matter of processing.

He hadn't really believed that Eisenhower would do it. Of course, he wanted his men to get their paroles, but...

You have to let go sometim—

He looked up sharply, sure that he had heard movement, hand reaching for his gun.

Footsteps presaged the arrival of Actor.

Who must have been searching for him. There was no other reason he'd be this far away from the warmth of the huge wood fires the team had started building in the inglenook in their quarters.

Of them all, he'd probably miss the conman most.

Actor looked down at him with an appraising expression, then put a hand on his shoulder. "The dreams are still bad?" It was not really a question.

"Some – how did you know? Oh, wait a minute. You put me to bed when I got back, right?"

"Chief and I." Actor sat down next to him, offering warmth without posing a threat. "And I share a room with Casino and Goniff. I have no doubt that you have been as deeply affected as they have – if not more so."

"Are they all right—? No, I guess they're not."

"They will look after each other," Actor said. "We'll all look after each other – all _five_ of us." Was there significance in the way he said that? Actor's ability to find things out was almost uncanny. Sometimes he knew what was going to happen before Garrison did himself. "So, tonight, we will all go into Town, and I will find you a nice girl who is not a good girl, and we shall all get drunk—"

"I can't do that, Actor!" Garrison snapped.

Actor's expression did not change. "It would be best for you," he said, "but if you like we can stay here instead and get drunk, and when you have drunk enough you can tell me everything – and hit me, or shout at me, or cry in my arms, whatever you need."

"I—"

"You will feel better for it, I promise. What happened was a terrible thing, Warden, but you cannot let it destroy you. And I will not."

Actor saw far too much – when he could be bothered.

I wish to God he'd been at Drachgiftzahn. He'd've seen through Steyrer's cons, not left me wondering...

Garrison said, "I never imagined, when you all sat around in that cellar near Paris and watched Wheeler try to knife me, that I'd receive such friendship from you."

"If that is how you feel, you must let me help."

Garrison shook his head. "Dammit, Actor—"

Chief didn't wait around to hear anything further, but slipped away through the shrubbery; he could end his watch, for now.

The Warden was in safe hands and, though he wished with all his heart those hands were his, he knew he could never have taken the first step, let alone made the offer Actor had.

No, he'd just've mumbled, "You okay?" and accepted Garrison's answer.

Still, that was a darn good idea of Actor's, about getting drunk and getting laid, and no doubt Goniff and Casino would agree with him. Tomorrow could look after itself.

And they'd no doubt have ideas about the Warden's birthday...

 

Fin


End file.
